Discussions about the fashion industry thread

[cb200]

Event is used in Hoka footwear. I know I've seen it elsewhere, I just can't remember where.

I've seen Event fabrics used by the Japanese brand And Wander. They are a bit more on fashion side of the outdoor clothing market.

 

[dieworkwear]

Oh yea, And Wander is really good for that kind of stuff. They had a backpack a while ago made from Cuben fiber, which I thought was really neat. One of the few companies that's bridging the gap between outdoor clothing performance gear and fashion.

 

[SimonC]

Plus also the Herno Laminar stuff, including trench coats, made from technical Goretex fabrics

 

[cb200]

One of the few companies that's bridging the gap between outdoor clothing performance gear and fashion.

In North America it seems that technical outdoor brands are tied to some notion of authenticity and hard core users. Some slow changes over the last decade with Veilance, Burton, and Nike (or they just contract Errolson Hugh) and some TNF stuff in terms of moving in a fashion design. But compared to Japan and European brands it seems like NA is quite a conservative market. If you walk the floor at the Outdoor Retailer show you won't see much that will tell you what year, or decade, it is outside of some new fabric hangtags. I do think TNF could be making some moves as their new creative director Tim Hamilton has some CFDA nominations under his belt.

I guess you could argue that the brands Poler Gear and Cotopaxi are/were a bit different from the masses of outdoor brands. Both had a bit more fun and were aimed at "good enough" technology vs pushing some technical or performance boundary. Certainly not fashion but different enough from the the performance based companies. Business wise, Poler just filed for bankruptcy after their sales dropped significantly.

In the outdoor category, the most interesting business news I've seen is the talk of a buy out of Amer Sports (owner of Arcteryx and Solomon) by a consortium of Chinese parties and one particular North American investor... Chip Wilson founder of Lululemon. https://www.bicycleretailer.com/ind...ard-supports-sale-investor-group#.XDy2Ki3MxPs

 

[bry2000]

Arc’teryx Veilance does a great job in bridging cold weather apparel with city style.

The Junya Watanabe x The North Face stuff is generally brilliant in design and function.

 

[clee1982]

Don’t really need more outwear otherwise Arc’teryx seem to fit the functional and look cool category

 

[cyc wid it]

Is And Wander type stuff really suitable for say snowboarding?

Descente also had the John Elliott collaboration

 

[Callusing]

Jumping late into this discussion, I've been very impressed with Mission Workshop in the tech/fashion space this year. They've seriously stepped their game up. Most of what they do is a step back from the bleeding edge, but in designs that if anything look techy in the Deus Ex sense not the backcountry sense. (And even not so much the former anymore)

A few times this year, though, they've been among the first to use some of Polartec's new stuff (certain applications of Gold, if I recall, and a couple new shell fabrics), and they've got a bunch of proprietary MECTEX fabrics, too.

Definitely more toward the street side of things than the slope side of things, but given that I've heard people go backcountry in Outlier, I'm sure a lot of MW could work, too.

For truly functional stuff, I've personally never found a need to look at anybody besides Patagonia. If I'm in a truly functional space, I don't give a damn about looks, or at least will not tolerate any compromise in performance to favor them.

 

[Callusing]

Separate question: Is there anything special about Yohji's Doc Martens collabs?

I know a lot of high-fashion collabs these days lead to really cool stuff. I love my Rick Owens Birks, which use way nicer leathers than Birkenstock would ever touch, and my Cabourn Danners with a novel silhouette. From what I've seen elsewhere, though, it seems like Yohji x Docs collabs are made in Vietnam, use standard Doc leathers, and usually just have one tiny manufacturing detail (like a couple extra eyelets on top, or using a new sole one season before it goes into widespread use) that distinguishes them from mainline Docs. And yet they're $1k retail.

Am I missing something, or is Yohji's brand that strong that he can demand that sort of markup?

 

[dieworkwear]

i haven't handled those, but from photos, the leather looks like it's better quality than standard doc martens

 

[cb200]

Arc’teryx Veilance does a great job in bridging cold weather apparel with city style.

The Junya Watanabe x The North Face stuff is generally brilliant in design and function.

Agree Veilance has done a good job sticking to and building their own lane in the market. I think the building of the line/brand has been slow off the blocks as the traditional Arcteryx retail partners in the outdoors wouldn't have known what to do with the line. I expect to see Veilance only shops or pop-ups if the proposed buyout and going private happen.

 

[g transistor]

There is no appreciable difference between eVent and Gore-tex. WM has been using it for like a decade.

Goretex and eVent in shoes/boots is a ******* nightmare. It never dries, it will eventually get wet (ALWAYS), you sweat a **** ton in it. Good lord it's a terrible thing to do and I wish places would stop. It's awesome the first week you use it.

Designer techwear (re: waterproofness) is stupid because the technology is just so unnecessary for walking to your office, and, you'll get wet eventually anyways. The best thing is an umbrella.

Where designer techwear should really focus on is warmth, comfort, durability, and the intersection of the three in a good design space (points if you can make it stop swish swishing). Don't care about "cooling" fabrics cause they never work well. Don't care about rain shells because Patagonia et al do it way better (though I do own a goretex WM rain jacket) and it's designed well enough that it can blend in if you want it to. Versus the "designed" techwear like Veilance or Acronym or Junya x NF you look like a clown most of the time if you don't have the full techwear look.

If you wear it for the way it looks, cool, and sometimes some cool functionality stuff comes out of it, but designer techwear is way bloated in price because of the completely irrelevant technology involved.

 

[bry2000]

I wear Junya goretex stuff and buy any bit of it I can at the right price. Veilance too and I have something from Prada that looks technical but I have no idea if it is. I buy and wear all of this stuff because I like it. Staying dry is at best a secondary consideration.

 

[bry2000]

Don’t really need more outwear otherwise Arc’teryx seem to fit the functional and look cool category

Check out Veilance. I like their cold weather stuff better than the stuff I have from Norwegian Rain.

 

[clee1982]

Looks a lot more technical, of all the tech outwear the stuff I kept around are all RLBL actually